Earthscan Risk in Society – serie

'Risk Governance is a tour de force. Every risk manager, every risk analyst, every risk researcher must read this book - it is the demarcation point for all further advances in risk policy and risk research. Renn provides authoritative guidance on how to manage risks based on a definitive synthesis of the research literature. The skill with which he builds practical recommendations from solid science is unprecedented.'Thomas Dietz, Director, Environmental Science and Policy Program, Michigan State University, USA 'A masterpiece of new knowledge and wisdom with illustrative examples of tested applications to realworld cases. The book is recommendable also to interested students in different disciplines as a timely textbook on 'risk beyond risk'.'Norio Okada, Full Professor and Director at the Disaster Prevention Research Institute (DPRI), Kyoto University, Japan 'There are classic environmental works such as The Tragedy of the Commons by Hardin, Risk Society by Beck, The Theory of Communicative Action by Habermas, and the seminal volumes by Ostrom on governing the commons. Renn's book fits right into this series of important milestones of environmental studies.'Jochen Jaeger, Professor at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada 'Risk Governance provides a valuable survey of the whole field of risk and demonstrates how scientific, economic, political and civil society actors can participate in inclusive risk governance.'Jobst Conrad, Senior Scientist, Social Science Research Center Berlin, Germany 'Renn offers a remarkably fair-minded and systematic approach to bringing together the diverse fields that have something to say about 'risk'. Risk Governance moves us along the path from the noisy, formative stage of thinking about risk to one with a stronger empirical, theoretical, and analytical foundation.'Baruch Fischhoff, PhD, Howard Heinz University Professor, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA 'I cannot describe how impressed I am at the breadth and coherence of Renn's career's work! Written with remarkable clarity and minimal technical jargon... [this] should be required reading in risk courses!' John Graham, former director of the Harvard Risk Center and former deputy director of the Office of Budget and Management of the Unites States Administration This book, for the first time, brings together and updates the groundbreaking work of renowned risk theorist and researcher Ortwin Renn, integrating the major disciplinary concepts of risk in the social, engineering and natural sciences. The book opens with the context of risk handling before flowing through the core topics of assessment, evaluation, perception, management and communication, culminating in a look at the transition from risk management to risk governance and a glimpse at a new understanding of risk in (post)modern societies.

This edited volume looks at whether it is possible to be more transparent about uncertainty in scientific evidence without undermining public understanding and trust. With contributions from leading experts in the field, this book explores the communication of risk and decision-making in an increasingly post-truth world. Drawing on case studies from climate change to genetic testing, the authors argue for better quality evidence synthesis to cut through the noise and highlight the need for more structured public dialogue. For uncertainty in scientific evidence to be communicated effectively, they conclude that trustworthiness is vital: the data and methods underlying statistics must be transparent, valid, and sound, and the numbers need to demonstrate practical utility and add social value to people’s lives. Presenting a conceptual framework to help navigate the reader through the key social and scientific challenges of a post-truth era, this book will be of great relevance to students, scholars, and policy makers with an interest in risk analysis and communication.

This volume presents the ethical implications of risk information as related to genetics and other health data for policy decisions at clinical, research and societal levels. Ethical, Social and Psychological Impacts of Genomic Risk Communication examines the introduction of new types of health risk information based on faster, cheaper and larger sets of genetic or genomic analysis. Synthesizing the results of a five-year interdisciplinary project, it explores the unsolved ethical and social questions around the sharing of this data, such as: What is best practice in risk communication? What are the normative presumptions and ethical consequences of an increased individual responsibility for ones’ health? And how does one deal with the gap between the knowledge of risk and the lack of therapeutic options which often exist for complex diseases, such as dementia or some types of cancer? Drawing on contributions from over 20 experts in the field, this collection examines these questions from a liberal bioethics’ perspective, advocating for contextual and cultural-sensitive ethical discussions. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of theoretical and clinical medical ethics, medical sociology, risk communication and ethics of risk, as well as professionals in clinical genetics.

This book answers the need for a contextual, long-term and interpretative analysis of risk from original sources. Risk has historically been a way of imagining what could happen in the future based on expert theories and predictions. This book explores this notion of "managing the future" by tracing the conceptual development of risk from its origin in Islamic Koranic theology. It follows its long voyage from mercantile law and navigation in Medieval Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean, to Columbus' arrival to the Indies and the Spanish exploration and colonization in the Americas. It considers the mathematical invention of probability in games of chance, the birth of journalism in Britain with Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Year, the earthquake of Lisbon in 1755 and the subsequent controversy between apocalyptic believers and enlightened philosophers. Tracking the growth and evolution of risk as a concept across various historical periods and events, Mairal highlights four key features of risk - time, knowledge, relationship and probability - and argues that risk is not based on perception as it is generally presented, but rather on knowledge accrued and developed over a vast historical time frame.A Pre-Modern Cultural History of Risk will be of great interest to students and scholars of risk management.

Siting Noxious Facilities explains and illustrates processes and criteria used to site noxious manufacturing and waste management facilities. It proposes a framework that integrates economic location analysis and risk analysis, emphasizing the reduction of uncertainty. This book begins by defining noxious facilities and considers the important role of manufacturing in the world economy, before going on to describe the historical practices used in locating these facilities for much of the twentieth century. It then shifts focus to analyze the complex set of considerations in the twenty-first century that mean that any facility that produces annoying smells and sounds, is unsightly and emits hazardous substances has had the bar of acceptability markedly raised for economic, environmental, social and political acceptability. Drawing on case study examples that highlight pollution prevention, choosing locations at major plants (CLAMP), negotiations, and surrendering control of an activity, Greenberg presents a hybrid framework that advocates the amalgamation of industrial location processes with human health and environmental-oriented risk analysis. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of location economics, environmental science, risk analysis and land-use planning. It will also be of great relevance to decision-makers and their major advisers who must make choices about siting noxious facilities.

Risks, including health and technological, attract a lot of attention in modern societies, from individuals as well as policy-makers. Human beings have always had to deal with dangers, but contemporary societies conceptualise these dangers as risks, indicating that they are to some extent controllable and calculable. Conceiving of dangers in this way implies a need to analyse how we hold people responsible for risks and how we can and should take responsibility for risks. Moral Responsibility and Risk in Society combines philosophical discussion of different concepts and notions of responsibility with context-specific applications in the areas of health, technology and environment. The book consists of two parts addressing two crucial aspects of risks and responsibility: holding agents responsible, i.e. ascribing and distributing responsibility for risks, and taking responsibility for risk. More specifically, the book discusses the values of fairness and efficacy in responsibility distributions and makes distinctions between backward-looking and forward-looking responsibility as well as individual and collective responsibility. Additionally, it analyses what it means to take responsibility for technological risks, conceptualising this kind of responsibility as a virtue, and furthermore, explores the notion of responsible risk communication and the implications for adult-child relationships. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of environmental ethics, bioethics, public health ethics, engineering ethics, philosophy of risk and moral philosophy.

This volume presents the ethical implications of risk information as related to genetics and other health data for policy decisions at clinical, research and societal levels. Ethical, Social and Psychological Impacts of Genomic Risk Communication examines the introduction of new types of health risk information based on faster, cheaper and larger sets of genetic or genomic analysis. Synthesizing the results of a five-year interdisciplinary project, it explores the unsolved ethical and social questions around the sharing of this data, such as: What is best practice in risk communication? What are the normative presumptions and ethical consequences of an increased individual responsibility for ones’ health? And how does one deal with the gap between the knowledge of risk and the lack of therapeutic options which often exist for complex diseases, such as dementia or some types of cancer? Drawing on contributions from over 20 experts in the field, this collection examines these questions from a liberal bioethics’ perspective, advocating for contextual and cultural-sensitive ethical discussions. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of theoretical and clinical medical ethics, medical sociology, risk communication and ethics of risk, as well as professionals in clinical genetics.

This edited volume looks at whether it is possible to be more transparent about uncertainty in scientific evidence without undermining public understanding and trust. With contributions from leading experts in the field, this book explores the communication of risk and decision-making in an increasingly post-truth world. Drawing on case studies from climate change to genetic testing, the authors argue for better quality evidence synthesis to cut through the noise and highlight the need for more structured public dialogue. For uncertainty in scientific evidence to be communicated effectively, they conclude that trustworthiness is vital: the data and methods underlying statistics must be transparent, valid, and sound, and the numbers need to demonstrate practical utility and add social value to people’s lives. Presenting a conceptual framework to help navigate the reader through the key social and scientific challenges of a post-truth era, this book will be of great relevance to students, scholars, and policy makers with an interest in risk analysis and communication.

Drawing on theory from anthropology, sociology, organisation studies and philosophy, this book addresses how the perception, communication and management of risk is shaped by culturally informed and socially embedded knowledge and experience. It provides an account of how interpretations of risk in society are conditioned by knowledge claims and cultural assumptions and by the orientationof actors based on roles, norms, expectations, identities, trust and practical rationality within a lived social world. By focusing on agency, social complexity and the production and interpretation of meaning, the book offers a comprehensive and holistic theoretical perspective on risk, based on empirical case studies and ethnographic enquiry.As a selection of Åsa Boholm’s publications throughout her career, along with a newly written introduction overviewing the field, this book provides a unified perspective on risk as a construct shaped by social and cultural contexts.This collection should be of interest to students and scholars of risk communication, risk management, environmental planning, environmental management and environmental and applied anthropology.

Drawing on theory from anthropology, sociology, organisation studies and philosophy, this book addresses how the perception, communication and management of risk is shaped by culturally informed and socially embedded knowledge and experience. It provides an account of how interpretations of risk in society are conditioned by knowledge claims and cultural assumptions and by the orientationof actors based on roles, norms, expectations, identities, trust and practical rationality within a lived social world. By focusing on agency, social complexity and the production and interpretation of meaning, the book offers a comprehensive and holistic theoretical perspective on risk, based on empirical case studies and ethnographic enquiry.As a selection of Åsa Boholm’s publications throughout her career, along with a newly written introduction overviewing the field, this book provides a unified perspective on risk as a construct shaped by social and cultural contexts.This collection should be of interest to students and scholars of risk communication, risk management, environmental planning, environmental management and environmental and applied anthropology.

The baby boom generation were born between 1946 and 1964 and are the largest population cohort in US history. They should number about 90 million by mid-century, more than doubling their current size. The massive increase in seniors and relative decline of those of working age in the US is mirrored in almost all the world’s most populous countries. This book connects the dots between the US baby boom generation and the marked increase in natural and human-caused disasters. It evaluates options available to seniors, their aids, for and not-for and for-profit organizations and government to reduce vulnerability to hazard events. These include coordinated planning, risk assessment, regulations and guidelines, education, and other risk management efforts. Using interviews with experts, cases studies, especially of Superstorm Sandy, and literature, it culls best practice and identify major gaps. It is original and successful in making the connection between the growing group of vulnerable US seniors, environmental events, and risk management practices in order to isolate the most effective lessons learned.

Governing environmental risk, particularly large-scale transboundary risks associated with climate change and pollution, is one of the most pressing problems facing society . This book focuses on a set of key questions relating to environmental regulation: How are activities regulated in a fragmented world - a world of nation states, regulators, domestic and international law and political contests - and one in which a range of actors, such as governments, corporations and NGOs act in order to influence regulations in specific policy areas? How are complex and trans-boundary environmental issues managed? What role does expert knowledge play in regulating this kind of issues? What give rules authority? In short, how do actors try to render an issue governable? Drawing on regulation theory, discourse theory and science and technology studies, and employing original research, the authors analyse the regulation of four kinds of complex and trans-boundary environmental issues: oil protection in the Baltic Sea, mobile phones and radiation protection, climate change adaptation and genetically modified crops. The outcomes include insights for policymakers, regulators and researchers into how dominant frames are constructed, legitimate actors are configured and authority is established. This in turn exposes the conditions for, and possibility of, developing regulation, making authoritative rules and shaping relevant knowledge in order to govern complex environmental risks.

This book answers the need for a contextual, long-term and interpretative analysis of risk from original sources. Risk has historically been a way of imagining what could happen in the future based on expert theories and predictions. This book explores this notion of "managing the future" by tracing the conceptual development of risk from its origin in Islamic Koranic theology. It follows its long voyage from mercantile law and navigation in Medieval Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean, to Columbus' arrival to the Indies and the Spanish exploration and colonization in the Americas. It considers the mathematical invention of probability in games of chance, the birth of journalism in Britain with Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Year, the earthquake of Lisbon in 1755 and the subsequent controversy between apocalyptic believers and enlightened philosophers. Tracking the growth and evolution of risk as a concept across various historical periods and events, Mairal highlights four key features of risk - time, knowledge, relationship and probability - and argues that risk is not based on perception as it is generally presented, but rather on knowledge accrued and developed over a vast historical time frame.A Pre-Modern Cultural History of Risk will be of great interest to students and scholars of risk management.

This book explores the connections between risk and responsibilisation in official communication to the public about the global risks of the pandemic and climate change.Our media spheres in the 2020s have been saturated with information about what we should or should not be doing to meet the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change. Although the ability of risk communication to ‘responsibilise’ the public is central to its functioning in our societies, this aspect has so far been under-investigated in academia. To address this lacuna, Antoinette Fage-Butler develops a discursive approach to risk communication that focuses on the values that are communicated in risk messages. Examples of official risk communication about the pandemic and climate change from national and transnational contexts are analysed and compared, leading to new empirical findings and theoretical insights about the nature of risk and responsibilisation. Fage-Butler also builds on recent stirrings in the evolving field of risk communication that highlight the importance of cultural and value-related factors. Overall, this book will equip researchers with an approach to risk communication that reflects the complexity of today’s global risk challenges.Risk and Responsibilisation in Public Communication will be of great interest to students and scholars of risk communication, public health and environmental studies.

This book explores the connections between risk and responsibilisation in official communication to the public about the global risks of the pandemic and climate change.Our media spheres in the 2020s have been saturated with information about what we should or should not be doing to meet the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change. Although the ability of risk communication to ‘responsibilise’ the public is central to its functioning in our societies, this aspect has so far been under-investigated in academia. To address this lacuna, Antoinette Fage-Butler develops a discursive approach to risk communication that focuses on the values that are communicated in risk messages. Examples of official risk communication about the pandemic and climate change from national and transnational contexts are analysed and compared, leading to new empirical findings and theoretical insights about the nature of risk and responsibilisation. Fage-Butler also builds on recent stirrings in the evolving field of risk communication that highlight the importance of cultural and value-related factors. Overall, this book will equip researchers with an approach to risk communication that reflects the complexity of today’s global risk challenges.Risk and Responsibilisation in Public Communication will be of great interest to students and scholars of risk communication, public health and environmental studies.

Using sources from classical to modern that broach the phenomenon of uncertainty and its relation to risk, this book creates a novel approach to the recognized but theoretically often unattended issue of uncertainty.Andreas Klinke develops a new, general theory of uncertainty that provides a taxonomy of categories which are deduced from a critical inventory in philosophy, social and natural sciences, and risk research. Comprising six parts, the philosophical grounding of uncertainty sets the stage for the following philosophical and social scientific accounts and explanation of four distinctive guises of uncertainty that form a taxonomic notion and rationale: ontological, epistemological, linguistic-communicative, and teleological uncertainty. The theoretical-conceptual rumination provides a complex, differentiated view of the anatomy of uncertainty and an understanding that can be used in further theoretical and empirical research, as well as socio-political practice. The latter is delineated in the final part addressing the societal domestication of uncertainty.This book will be of great interest to scholars and students in philosophy, social and natural sciences, risk research, as well as inter- and transdisciplinary science fields.

Using sources from classical to modern that broach the phenomenon of uncertainty and its relation to risk, this book creates a novel approach to the recognized but theoretically often unattended issue of uncertainty.Andreas Klinke develops a new, general theory of uncertainty that provides a taxonomy of categories which are deduced from a critical inventory in philosophy, social and natural sciences, and risk research. Comprising six parts, the philosophical grounding of uncertainty sets the stage for the following philosophical and social scientific accounts and explanation of four distinctive guises of uncertainty that form a taxonomic notion and rationale: ontological, epistemological, linguistic-communicative, and teleological uncertainty. The theoretical-conceptual rumination provides a complex, differentiated view of the anatomy of uncertainty and an understanding that can be used in further theoretical and empirical research, as well as socio-political practice. The latter is delineated in the final part addressing the societal domestication of uncertainty.This book will be of great interest to scholars and students in philosophy, social and natural sciences, risk research, as well as inter- and transdisciplinary science fields.

Trust is an important factor in risk management, affecting judgements of risk and benefit, technology acceptance and other forms of cooperation. In this book the world?s leading risk researchers explore all aspects of trust as it relates to risk management and communication. Drawing on a wide variety of disciplinary approaches and empirical case studies (on topics such as mobile phone technology, well-known food accidents and crises, wetland management, smallpox vaccination, cooperative risk management of US forests and the disposal of the Brent Spar oil drilling platform), this is the most thorough and up-to-date examination of trust in all its forms and complexities.The book integrates diverse research traditions and provides new insights into the phenomenon of trust. Factors that lead to the establishment and erosion of trust are identified. Insightful analyses are provided for researchers and students of environmental and social science and professionals engaged in risk management and communication in both public and private sectors.Related titles The Tolerability of Risk (2007) 978-1-84407-398-6

'A comprehensive and important collection that includes essays by some of the leading figures in the field. ...Essential reading for anyone interested in risk assessment.' Professor Kristin Shrader-Frechette, University of Notre Dame'The editors are to be congratulated for bringing together a distinguished international group of theorists to reflect on the issues. This volume will be sure to raise the level of debate while at the same time showing the importance of philosophical reflection in approaches to the problems of the age.' Professor Jonathan Wolff, University College LondonThis volume brings together top authors from the fields of risk, philosophy, social sciences and psychology to address the issue of how we should decide how far technological risks are morally acceptable or not. The underlying principles are examined, along with methodological challenges, public involvement and instruments for democratization. A strong theoretical basis is complemented by a range of case studies from some of the most contentious areas, including medical ethics and GM crops. This book is a vital new resource for researchers, students and anyone concerned that traditional approaches to risk management don't adequately address ethical considerations.

Siting Noxious Facilities explains and illustrates processes and criteria used to site noxious manufacturing and waste management facilities. It proposes a framework that integrates economic location analysis and risk analysis, emphasizing the reduction of uncertainty. This book begins by defining noxious facilities and considers the important role of manufacturing in the world economy, before going on to describe the historical practices used in locating these facilities for much of the twentieth century. It then shifts focus to analyze the complex set of considerations in the twenty-first century that mean that any facility that produces annoying smells and sounds, is unsightly and emits hazardous substances has had the bar of acceptability markedly raised for economic, environmental, social and political acceptability. Drawing on case study examples that highlight pollution prevention, choosing locations at major plants (CLAMP), negotiations, and surrendering control of an activity, Greenberg presents a hybrid framework that advocates the amalgamation of industrial location processes with human health and environmental-oriented risk analysis. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of location economics, environmental science, risk analysis and land-use planning. It will also be of great relevance to decision-makers and their major advisers who must make choices about siting noxious facilities.

Risk analysis is not a narrowly defined set of applications. Rather, it is widely used to assess and manage a plethora of hazards that threaten dire implications. However, too few people actually understand what risk analysis can help us accomplish and, even among experts, knowledge is often limited to one or two applications. Explaining Risk Analysis frames risk analysis as a holistic planning process aimed at making better risk-informed decisions and emphasizing the connections between the parts. This framework requires an understanding of basic terms, including explanations of why there is no universal agreement about what risk means, much less risk assessment, risk management and risk analysis. Drawing on a wide range of case studies, the book illustrates the ways in which risk analysis can help lead to better decisions in a variety of scenarios, including the destruction of chemical weapons, management of nuclear waste and the response to passenger rail threats. The book demonstrates how the risk analysis process and the data, models and processes used in risk analysis will clarify, rather than obfuscate, decision-makers’ options.This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of risk assessment, risk management, public health, environmental science, environmental economics and environmental psychology.

Risk analysis is not a narrowly defined set of applications. Rather, it is widely used to assess and manage a plethora of hazards that threaten dire implications. However, too few people actually understand what risk analysis can help us accomplish and, even among experts, knowledge is often limited to one or two applications. Explaining Risk Analysis frames risk analysis as a holistic planning process aimed at making better risk-informed decisions and emphasizing the connections between the parts. This framework requires an understanding of basic terms, including explanations of why there is no universal agreement about what risk means, much less risk assessment, risk management and risk analysis. Drawing on a wide range of case studies, the book illustrates the ways in which risk analysis can help lead to better decisions in a variety of scenarios, including the destruction of chemical weapons, management of nuclear waste and the response to passenger rail threats. The book demonstrates how the risk analysis process and the data, models and processes used in risk analysis will clarify, rather than obfuscate, decision-makers’ options.This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of risk assessment, risk management, public health, environmental science, environmental economics and environmental psychology.

Social trust is a crucial issue to many aspects of modern society. Policy makers continually aspire to winning it and corporations frequently run the risk of losing it. The 'trust deficit' raises vital questions and problems to which until recently there have been few answers or solutions.Experts from both sides of the Atlantic explore the importance for trust of various influences, from individual perceptions to organizational systems, and consider the conditions involved in building or undermining trust. Several authors examine practical hazard management issues, including medical vaccination programmes and popular participation in pollution control and waste management as strategies for enhancing social trust.This book provides insightful analysis for researchers and students of environmental and social sciences and is essential reading for those engaged in risk management in both the public and private sectors.

The benefits of modern technology often involve health, safety and environmental risks that produce public suspicion of technologies and aversion to certain products and substances. Amplified by the pervasive power of the media, public concern about health and ecological risks can have enormous economic and social impacts, such as the 'stigmatization' experienced in recent years with nuclear power, British beef and genetically modified plants.This volume presents the most current and comprehensive examination of how and why stigma occurs and what the appropriate responses to it should be to inform the public and reduce undesirable impacts. Each form of stigma is thoroughly explored through a range of case studies. Theoretical contributions look at the roles played by government and business, and the crucial impact of the media in forming public attitudes. Stigma is not always misplaced, and the authors discuss the challenges involved in managing risk and reducing the vulnerability of important products, industries and institutions while providing the public with the relevant information they need about risks.

Risks, including health and technological, attract a lot of attention in modern societies, from individuals as well as policy-makers. Human beings have always had to deal with dangers, but contemporary societies conceptualise these dangers as risks, indicating that they are to some extent controllable and calculable. Conceiving of dangers in this way implies a need to analyse how we hold people responsible for risks and how we can and should take responsibility for risks. Moral Responsibility and Risk in Society combines philosophical discussion of different concepts and notions of responsibility with context-specific applications in the areas of health, technology and environment. The book consists of two parts addressing two crucial aspects of risks and responsibility: holding agents responsible, i.e. ascribing and distributing responsibility for risks, and taking responsibility for risk. More specifically, the book discusses the values of fairness and efficacy in responsibility distributions and makes distinctions between backward-looking and forward-looking responsibility as well as individual and collective responsibility. Additionally, it analyses what it means to take responsibility for technological risks, conceptualising this kind of responsibility as a virtue, and furthermore, explores the notion of responsible risk communication and the implications for adult-child relationships. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of environmental ethics, bioethics, public health ethics, engineering ethics, philosophy of risk and moral philosophy.

The baby boom generation were born between 1946 and 1964 and are the largest population cohort in US history. They should number about 90 million by mid-century, more than doubling their current size. The massive increase in seniors and relative decline of those of working age in the US is mirrored in almost all the world’s most populous countries. This book connects the dots between the US baby boom generation and the marked increase in natural and human-caused disasters. It evaluates options available to seniors, their aids, for and not-for and for-profit organizations and government to reduce vulnerability to hazard events. These include coordinated planning, risk assessment, regulations and guidelines, education, and other risk management efforts. Using interviews with experts, cases studies, especially of Superstorm Sandy, and literature, it culls best practice and identify major gaps. It is original and successful in making the connection between the growing group of vulnerable US seniors, environmental events, and risk management practices in order to isolate the most effective lessons learned.

Trust is an important factor in risk management, affecting judgements of risk and benefit, technology acceptance and other forms of cooperation. In this book the world's leading risk researchers explore all aspects of trust as it relates to risk management and communication. The authors draw on a wide variety of disciplinary approaches and empirical case studies on topics such as mobile phone technology, well-known food accidents and crises, wetland management, smallpox vaccination, cooperative risk management of US forests and the disposal of the Brent Spar oil drilling platform. The book integrates diverse research traditions and provides new insights into the phenomenon of trust, including the factors that lead to the establishment and erosion of trust. Insightful analyses are provided for researchers and students of environmental and social science and professionals engaged in risk management and communication in both public and private sectors.

Environmental hazards do not respect international boundaries. In this volume, distinguished international researchers make a significant contribution to the understanding and management of transboundary environmental risks. The transboundary risk topics addressed highlight the key political, economic, social and cultural issues of our times, such as how transboundary risks are constructed, how they are communicated within and between countries, how the authorities can build trust in political management processes, and what forms of democratic risk management institutions are appropriate. Useful practical lessons on the management of transboundary risk at the national and international levels are drawn from the case studies. The volume provides valuable evidence and analysis for those working on international environmental issues and all aspects of risk management.

‘A thought-provoking and invaluable book for anyone who cares about risk communication andmanagement in the 21st century’Anna Jung, Director General, European Food Information Council‘Professor Ragnar Löfstedt has once again produced a most interesting book on risk management andtrust, well-based on theory and built on empirical findings’Mikael Karlsson, President, Swedish Society for Nature Conservation‘Highlights the difficult balancing task facing risk regulators. Regulatory inaction against real risks canundermine public trust. However, exaggerated responses to risks can also jeopardize regulators’credibility. The diverse international case studies developed by Ragnar Löfstedt provide guidance forhow regulators can navigate these and other frequently competing concerns’W. Kip Viscusi, Cogan Professor of Law and Economics, Harvard University, USA‘In democracies, government policies cannot succeed without public acceptance. Yet complex riskmanagement requires technical expertise. How to reconcile these competing needs? Ragnar Löfstedtprovocatively challenges recent research claiming that risk managers must engender public trust viadeliberative dialogue. He uses four cases studies to argue that the reasons for distrust vary anddemand different responses; that in some cases trust can flow from technical competence withoutpublic deliberation; and that in others public deliberation can actually aggravate distrust. Trust me:Löfstedt’s book will add spice to the debate over risk, experts, the public and trust’Jonathan B. Wiener, Perkins Professor of Law and Environmental Policy, Duke University, USAWe live in ‘post-trust’ societies, in which public confidence in governments and corporations overhealth, food and environmental risk is eroding rapidly. Good risk communication can help companies,governments and institutions minimize disputes, resolve issues and anticipate problems. Withoutsuch communication, the best policies can become derailed and trust can be lost. Most policy-makersstill use outdated methods to communicate policies and achieve their objectives – methods developedbefore public trust in industry and government was affected by health scares such as BSE, geneticallymodified organisms and dioxins in Belgian chicken. This book provides effective methods formanaging and communicating risk effectively in contemporary societies.